The Real Housewives and modern feminism
In her 1949 book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir writes the following on femininity:
“If the definition provided for this concept is contradicted by the behavior of flesh-and-blood women, it is the latter who are wrong: we are told not that Femininity is a false entity, but that the women concerned are not feminine.”
De Beauvoir’s commentary, though made several decades ago, remains pertinent today; society attempts to simplify women, to define them quickly and without nuance, so that they can be placed neatly into a box. Interestingly, The Real Housewives franchise poses a massive threat to the misogyny that is so embedded in popular culture. In The Real Housewives universe, the woman - and especially the aging woman - is not relegated to the confines of a singular label, such as Bitch, Whore, Crazy, or Emotional. Instead, the audience engages in voyeurism through a very real lens of the many nuances and complexities that these women (and women in general) face.
Put simply, the greatness that lies within The Real Housewives franchise is its ability to showcase middle-aged women as dynamic and multidimensional. The Housewives are completely and unapologetically themselves, regardless of how messy the outcome - and what’s more, they are celebrated for it. Viewers see the evolution of these women across the years; we see their home lives, the disruptions in their social circle, their careers and so on. It is something of a documentary, telling the unadulterated stories of these women, who might otherwise be ignored by society. The Real Housewives is a unique instance of full character development for middle-aged women, and by such, a beacon of feminism within popular culture. Yes, we know Teresa Guidice for her infamous table-flip, but we also know her for the emphasis she places on family, for the time she spent as a single mother while her husband was in prison, for her Italian heritage. We’ve seen Nene Leakes donning a dress made from dollar bills, exclaiming “I am VERY rich, bitch!”. However, we’ve also seen her battle the horrors of a spouse with cancer, become a grandmother, find success in an acting career, and open up about her past as a stripper in Atlanta. Ultimately, The Real Housewives forces us to look at the big picture – to understand and analyze these women as dynamic, and to realize that they each contain multitudes.
After all the drama, the feuds, and the iconic one-liners, we are left with the complex stories of middle-aged women. The Real Housewives pushes boundaries and disrupts our comfortability with defining women in a linear manner…perhaps not in the exact fashion that Simone de Beauvoir could’ve guessed, but I think she’d applaud it all the same.
